Hurts Like Death
by pandora-xox
Summary: In war, one must make sacrifices. But where does humanity go if all is lost? DM/GW, one-shot.


**I recommend listening to the song Cosmic Love by Florence and the Machine when reading this. It's the song that not only inspired this, but made it happen.**

**I've posted this as a Ginny/Draco fic, but wrote it with no specific characters in mind. So please, apply to whichever ships you would prefer.**

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**_A fallen sta__r… Fell from your heart, and landed in my eyes._

She'd always known how it would end, always known when. There had been a million scenarios, a thousand different ways and means that played in her dreams, her daydreams, like broken records skipping over and over in her addled subconscious.

_I screamed aloud as it tore through them…and now it's left me blind._

It was like someone had shoved their hand down her throat and left a pile of sawdust in her lungs. They'd stuffed her ears with cotton wool, siphoned champagne in to her eye-sockets. They jabbed at her pupils with cocktail stirrers, or maybe they were pins? Pins, pins and needles in her eyes, only seeing red… Tummy constricted and aching, pulling at air she can't seem to quite reach. Feels like someone snapped a rubber-band around her gut and under her skin, crawling under her skin like bugs, like maggots, dirty, germanous creatures that make her shiver, or is it the cold that makes her tremble? Arms are a dead-weight, like a mule pulling a cart that seems to get heavier every labouring step. Can't feel her legs, can't feel thighs, knees, calves, feet. Where had they gone? Gone for a holiday and forgotten to tell her? Taken a short trip, sorry for the short notice, no I'm sorry; we don't know when we'll be back…

_The stars, the moon__, they've all been blown out…and you left me in the dark_.

She's reclining in a field of blood. Sunbathing in the darkness, a crimson beach towel beneath her to lie on, lie in. Her strangely quiet mind wonders fleetingly whose blood…hers or theirs? Friends or foes, lovers or fighters, killers or defenders…there's no difference anymore. One kills for change, the other kills for normalcy. Crusaders, all in their own rights, under their own hands. But when the bodies start falling, the blood starts leaking…when the fearful scream in anguish, and the noble, the weak, the old and young begin to perish; is there even such a thing as friend, such a thing as foe? The result is the same. People will die, people with mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and lovers…and lovers. People with so much to live for it hurts, hurts like a pain that's not in the mind or the body, but right in the centre of your heart.

Hurts like death.

_No dawn. No Day. I'm always in this twilight, in the shadow of your heart._

Her mind's coming back to her, and she doesn't expect that, doesn't expect that at all. Supposed to lose it when you die, supposed to misplace piece by piece of sanity until all that's left is a shell, a rotting corpse. She figures someone will find her soon enough, but it will be too late, too late for the pieces of her brain to be found and put back together, like an ongoing puzzle, collecting dust every day it's not being finished. Like a treasure hunt, with no treasure and not much of a hunt, X marks the spot. A treasure hunt with no prize, no loot, no gold and jewels to pillage and enjoy – guess its not as much fun as they thought.

_In the dark, I can hear your heartbeat. I try to find the sound but then it st-st-stopped._

Nestled deep within the grief, the excruciating pain, the fear and anger, was a sinister satisfaction – she'd always relished being the one to say she-told-you-so. Not finicky, not a know-it-all, or a busybody - she'd worked hard to gain any reputation but that one…her brain smiled to itself, thinking about a few people who had done no such thing. She'd never knock them for it. But by golly, was she glad she was who she was, and not who she wasn't.

_I was in the darkness… so the darkness I became._

He would find her later. Find her battered and bruised body lying in a salty red ocean. Hope he doesn't feel the pain she feels. Everything hurts and there's no relief, no detour from the pain nestled deep in the spine and spreading up up up through her being, her centre until she's bleeding all over the grass, the razorblades, laying on the crimson beach towel and adding fuel to the red red fire. Her eyes burn behind a sheen of sweat love blood, blood in her eyes getting worse and worse and worse until the stars don't twinkle and the sky's not dark it's crimson, red like roses, rubies, glitzy slippers. She wishes she could click her ankles together, go to a place where there's no place like home, no place like pain suffering anguish grief.

_I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map… knew that somehow, I could find my way back._

Dead dead dead. Wishes she was dead too. Hells bleeding bells, bleeding out, bleed out out out and no one seems to hear the buzzing in her ears, the ringing, like a telephone call you don't want to answer, because it's probably your mother on the other end of the line, and she's going to tell you off for smoking drinking loving sexing having a life. Definitely not picking up that call, not anytime soon. A tear wells in her red eye, and the throbbing in her sockets seems to vibrate until she's screaming in agony, perhaps crying isn't as good for you as they say…

She wishes she could call her mother back and tell her she was sorry.

_Then I heard your heart beating, you were darkness, too. So I stayed in the darkness with you._

Screaming in agony, eh? Like a baby crying for its bottle, a toddler whinging for sweets, a teenager moaning for a boyfriend and an adult yearning for a baby, a baby that will cry for its bottle. Circles, around and around and around, like karma. Maybe in her next life, she could be a tiger, or a goldfish, maybe a housefly. Life's probably a whole lot simpler, a whole lot less painful if you're a lowly housefly, buzz buzz buzz until you find yourself sandwiched between a wall and a hand SMACK and bad-a-bing-ba-da-boom, you're a baby again, cry cry crying for its bottle...screaming in agony. Circles.

_In the dark, I can hear your heatbeabeatbeat._

Lord please if you're out there just kill me now can't take this anymore it's all too much the pain's too much forgive me Jesus for all my sins all my wrongs I'll do anything please anything just release me from this life let my body hang limp and lifeless and my soul float up to heaven or maybe down to hell because even the devil is preferable to the pain I'm feeling right now let them bury me in the ground and lie to rest with all the others who just weren't strong enough to hold it out don't judge me for my weakness in death but remember me for my bravery in life just don't forget me don't ever forget me…I don't want to be alone.

_I try to find the sound but it's stopped._

Tell my mother how I don't really hate her; in fact I love her 'til the day I die. Tell my father it was me that 'lost' his favourite shirt yes I'm sorry, no it wasn't an accident, you deserved it but I love you anyway. Tell my brother to get himself a girlfriend and make our parents damn proud, all they've got to live for now you prick. Tell him to stop sleeping around and settle down for God's sake, for mamma's sake. Give her the grandchildren I won't.

_I try to find the sound but it's st-stopped._

Tell them I died valiantly, even if I didn't. Apologize to my soul, I didn't mean to make life so hard for you.

_I try to find the sound but it's st-st-stopped._

Tell them anything. It hardly matters now, really. Body stops working, well oiled machine bursts in to flames. Put aching bone and rotting flesh down in the ground, let me become the earth. Soul floats up to heaven and now I am where I belong.

_Then I heard your heart beating, you were darkness, too._

Taps her bleeding, broken feet together at the ankles, tap tap tap.

_So I stayed in the darkness with you._

There's no place like home.

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**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, please don't sue me.  
(Any and all mistakes are my own.)**

**This is a little more experimental than I usually write, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!  
I'm considering writing a side-along piece for this, from a different POV. If you think this is a great idea, tell me. If you think it's a terrible idea, tell me.**

**Thank you.**


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